The invention concerns a photographic or electronic camera with an optoelectronic distance meter. Two linear image sensors are provided each of which have a plurality of sensor elements. Two optical devices are provided associated with a lens of the camera and which create two partial aperture diaphragms for the projection of first and second bundles of rays which are projected onto the image sensors and correspond to two images obtained from the object being viewed. An evaluating circuit is provided which in dependence upon varied position displacements of sensor signals obtained from the one image sensor with respect to sensor signals obtained from the other image sensor determines a maximum correlation between these signals and an associated position displacement with a corresponding electrical value.
A photographic camera of this kind whereby the two images required of the object, whose distance is to be determined, are obtained via the partial aperture diaphragms of the camera lens, is known from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 20,812, filed Mar. 13, 1979, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,304,474 incorporated herein by reference. Arrangements for the optoelectronic distance measurement with two linear image sensors are also described in U.S. Ser. No. 20,813 filed Mar. 15, 1979 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,290,693 and also in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 69,788, filed Aug. 27, 1979, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,320,302; 168,648, filed July 11, 1980, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,334,150; and 172,084, filed July 24, 1980, all incorporated herein by reference. Accordingly, the devices for the derivation of the two images in each case are designated very generally as optical devices which, for example, can consist of two partial aperture diaphragms of a lens or of two separate lenses which fulfill the same functions.
As proceeds from the patent applications identified, the sensor elements consist of photodiodes, MIS capacitors, or of photodiodes to which in each case MIS capacitors are associated. Within individual time intervals which also are designated as integration times, in each case optically generated charge carriers collect in the sensor elements from which then the sensor signals are derived. In the case of the arrangement according to U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 20,813 and 20,812, there proceeds an analog processing of the sensor signals, while the arrangements according to the other above named patent applications differ from this to the extent that the sensor signals are first digitalized before their further processing.